As a result of the Transport
Act of 1968, four large operating bodies were set up to run Bus (and local Rail) Transport
across various regions of the county, including Merseyside, Tyneside, West Midlands, and
the body set up for Manchester and the surrounding towns was named SELNEC (South East
Lancashire, North East Cheshire).

Looking back at the composition of the fleets of these 11 cities and towns, as well as North Western, Wigan and Lancashire United, which were eventually added to SELNEC/GMT as it expanded over the years, it is interesting to note which organisations ran trams, trolley buses, front engined/rear engined motor buses, front engined/front entrance motorbuses, and rear engined vehicles. These were as follows:

Trams

Trolley Buses

Front engined
motor buses

Front entrance/front engined motor buses

Rear engined buses

Ashton

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Bolton

Yes

Yes (4)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Bury

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Leigh

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Oldham

Yes

Yes (2)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Ramsbottom

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Rochdale

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Salford

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

SHMD

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Stockport

Yes

Yes (3)

Yes

Yes

No

Manchester

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

North Western

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Wigan

Yes

Yes (4)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Lancashire United

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

The SELNEC PTE was officially formed in terms of its vehicle
operations on 1st November 1969, and inherited the Bus Fleets from 11 constituent City and
Town Councils being Manchester, Salford, Oldham, Ashton, SHMD (Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley
and Dukinfield), Stockport, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Ramsbottom and Leigh, totalling 2,514
buses.

Whereas the other three of these organisations known as PTE's
(Passenger Transport Executives) took the colour of the largest constituent fleet, i.e.
Liverpool Green for Merseyside, Newcastle Yellow for Tyneside, Birmingham Blue for West
Midlands, SELNEC did not take the Red of Manchester or any of the constituent colours of
any of the Bus Companies that were absorbed to form it, but took a political decision to
have a neutral colour, thus ending up with sunglow orange/mancunian white, launched on
11th March 1970. This was somewhat of an anomoly as the Mancunians had been
painted in pure white, but the "mancunian white" used with sunglow
orange was off-white.

One of the problems faced by the new co-ordinated body was that all these various buses
had very little interchangeability of mechanical or body parts, and could not be moved
around freely across the PTE area as they wished. Each of the Operators they had inherited
had its own specification for buses which, included practically every body and chassis
builder in the Country. From the SELNEC fleet, only really Manchester and Bolton had
developed their own designs under the influence of Ralph Bennett, but although almost all
Operators had buses to standard body specifications, they still had non-standard fixtures
and fittings.